


Up And Above

by Ser_Renity



Series: Final Arc [4]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Gen, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-08-11 09:39:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7886095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ser_Renity/pseuds/Ser_Renity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For some, death is only temporary. //goes with "Down And Below"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Up And Above

**Author's Note:**

> another character who was undoubtedly treated like absolute crap and who I will go to the ends of the earth for, here we go, more personal fix-it because I see a million posts about //////some dead shinigami dude but only like 2 and a peanut for Unohana ayoo
> 
> this can also be seen to go with the Ricochet flashback part sorta maybe I dont even know anymore I am just weeping x239

* * *

 

“Hello, Minazuki.”

  
Unohana smiled up into the darkness of he inner world, to the capricious spirit holding her soul in the balance between life and death, killing and being killed.

  
It was the very nature she had chosen for herself; the dichotomy of who she wanted to be.

  
So she lifted the corners of her bleeding lips in lieu of a hand. Her sword would understand.

  
“I won’t forgive you,” Minazuki said and its voice was like the deep growl of approaching thunder.

  
Unohana kept on smiling but really, she wanted to cry. Dying wasn’t happy or good and what she told the child, the true Kenpachi, was a lie. A part of where was satisfied like this, motionless, but another still craved memories and closure on so many things.

  
“Why won’t you forgive me?” she asked, “What is it this time?”

  
Minazuki’s world of reiatsu quivered in anger, moved closer with the certainty of a creature more powerful than anything else in creation.

  
“You spoke so much of limiting oneself in combat to unlock that man’s potential,” it hissed with a tongue so sharp it hurt in her ears, “Then why do you limit yourself to please another?”

  
Unohana laughed and her punctured lungs spit blood in her rib cage. Death was never pretty, not even on her.

  
“I am not the true Kenpachi,” she said.

  
Minazuki’s million claws dug into her side, cradled her so gently it hardly made sense for it to be a demon.

  
“You are more,” it said, “You are my wielder.”

  
“I am more,” Unohana agreed and coughed in its grasp, “And I knew you would not let us rest.”

  
Minazuki clicked its tongue- or maybe that was too human of a concept for something of its magnitude. Demon was a good word for it, its endless well of strength drawn from blood. She spun it around her blade, weaved patterns in the empty air during hours of peace. The wound on her chest started to pulse, calling for more.

  
“Shinigami,” Minazuki said, “Goddess of death.”

  
Oh, and how that title applied to them and her alone, the oldest and strongest of them all. Unohana had watched Shunsui and Juushiro’s Bankais develop into smaller forms of her own- something twisted, too, but never anything the size of an entire dimension.

  
Minazuki opened its maw, oil-black space behind its bleeding teeth. Every drop on her skin was acid, was a balm and knitted back together what she had decided wasn’t hers anymore.

  
Oh, he could have her title and part of her strength, that new and animalistic Kenpachi, and she thought of him with a smile and nothing less. She would let him believe he bested her at the peak of her power, that there was nothing beyond what she had shown him.

  
Minazuki didn’t like the thought- it wanted the mountains of corpses back in front of them, slaughter for slaughter’s sake because the cutting of flesh felt so pleasant against its gleaming edge.

  
However, Unohana had changed in that time as a healer; she wanted both and neither, life and death. Nothing was as clear-cut as it used to be and even if her soul screamed for war her heart remembered fonder memories. Isane and her loyalty, the strength in the eyes of a few human children. And for the first time in an eternity Unohana wanted to be there for the end of a story; she wanted to see it, taste it and its resolution.

  
It was not just the fight for her, it was _fighting_ and _that which might be worth fighting for._

  
Minazuki understood because they were one and the same, a monster and a monster’s shadow.

  
Her hair fell into her face as she turned her head to the side. This was her inner world; she knew what it looked like, had stood in this abyss many times before. It was always exhilarating to know this was what waited in her soul, a void that could have been cold but wasn’t, that could have scared her but didn’t. There was no deep meaning behind its shape other than that she liked it- leave reality to the waking world and simplicity to this realm.

  
“It will take time,” Minazuki said, “Your wounds are deep and our spirit is weary.”

  
“What do you want me to do?” she asked, knowing the answer.

  
Her sword opened its gaping mouth, swallowed her whole.

  
“Rest.”

  
Unohana closed her eyes and obeyed.

 

* * *

 

 

Climbing back to Soul Society’s surface felt like leaving her grave- and what else was the underground prison, really, if not a tomb?

  
The sun was shining upon the Seiretei.

  
Unohana felt the reiatsu of _war_ in the distance- as nothing other than terror and blood. There were no winners, no losers, nothing poetic to say about the bodies piling up.

  
She walked, Minazuki on her mind. There were others she needed to check on, even more people on the list of those that required killing. The Quincy emperor, first of all. Then the henchmen who would not yield.

  
“Has your thirst for blood returned?” her zanpakuto spirit asked, “After all these years it is brought out by that boy?”

  
“It is brought by the war,” she answered and let her fingers slide over the flat side of her blade- a caress, if nothing else.

  
But really, as she got closer to the Soul King’s palace, made her way up on the back of Minazuki, what she desired wasn’t blood.

  
As she walked among the corpses of the division zero she swayed a little. Nimaiya, shot in the chest. Then the others, in a row one after another.

  
“So you finally got yourself killed,” she said quietly, kneeling down at the side of the woman she admired most in the world, “I want to say it is irony I am still here but it doesn’t feel quite right to joke with your body in tatters like this.”

  
Senjumaru didn’t answer, stayed as quiet as she did when she focused on her work, all those strings coming together as her thousand hands fell into the tact of a machine. Click, click, click.

  
“We can help her,” Minazuki growled, “We are stronger than death now.”

  
So Unohana lifted her hand above the gaping maw of the wound that had once been Senjumaru Shutara’s sternum.

  
Far ahead the war was waging but she felt like she had a moment to spare- just one, just for this. Her admiration had never been determined by whether or not it was requited.

 

* * *

 

 

Unohana saw a Quincy dash across the rooftops, barely even aware of anything in his vicinity. He was young, she guessed, with wings like a bird’s and urgency speaking from the rapid movement of his lanky limbs.

  
She considered killing him there in his flight, ending it abruptly with a flick of her wrist.

  
Unohana had never been arrogant since she had tasted defeat once- but she knew now that she would not find an equal soon. With the taste of death on her lips, her blood and bile still drying, she was not a creature of this world. A shinigami no longer, perhaps, or finally a step closer to the true meaning of the word.

  
The Quincy fell as she shot him down, crashed into one of the roofs with his wings spread at his sides.

  
“I’m not your enemy!” was the first thing he shouted at her as he found the source of the kidou that bound his limbs together. She didn’t much care for the terms he used- there was truth in the Quincy’s demands but no justice in their actions.

  
“I swear, honestly, you try to help out one time and this happens, I should have listened to my guts instead of this madman’s plan, this suicidal piece of garbage mission-”

  
“Your reiatsu,” Unohana interrupted his nervous speech, “You were present at the time when the division zero fell.”

  
His power was considerable and she hesitated for just the moment it took him to jump out of her reach again.

  
“I have only one question for you,” she said, “Was it you who killed Senjumaru Shutara?”

  
“Look, I don’t remember the names of some people I just met for about half a minute-”

  
“Was it you?” she repeated, still calm.

  
He ran a hand through his dark hair, looked to the sides.

  
“No,” he said and it sounded so much like a lie she believed it, “I didn’t get a chance to kill any of them. I incapacitated two of the others but they were not the seamstress.”

  
Unohana let him go. Minazuki was not happy but understood nonetheless- their emperor needed to be cut down, not every single scared child in his army.

  
She saw another on the way to the place where reiatsu collided like a maelstrom.

  
“Make it quick,” the girl coughed and her long green hair swayed in the wind, “Fucking shinigami scum.”

  
Unohana healed her wounds just enough for her to be quiet and stare, in awe of the creature that she mistook for a person at first.

  
“What have you done to yourself?” the Quincy girl asked, “Your reaitsu is freaking me out.”

  
“Nothing much,” Unohana replied almost cheerfully, “I came back from the brink of death.

  
Shinigami appeared to take the girl into custody but she didn’t mind- the Quincy only asked for one of her friends, desperately wanted to find out if she too made it out somehow.

  
Unohana walked on.

 

* * *

 

 

The war ended just as she approached the battlefield- she saw Yhwach fall and die from afar, regretting this one time she had not been fast enough. A killing blow would have felt good at this time, a single strike to make up for the destruction of an entire world.

  
“I thought you were dead,” Isane said, choked up and still so respectful, “I- I am so glad to see you are here.”

  
Unohana smiled at her.

  
Not everyone had been as lucky- the Kenpachi boy, Ukitake, Kyoraku. They were all gone and she mourned them quietly like she would those others she could not save.

  
It was part of who she was now- part healing, part fighting.

  
The war was over, nonetheless.

  
Unohana watched as the sun fully rose above the Seiretei.

  
She smiled, just once.

 

* * *

 


End file.
